Take a Chance (7 page)

Jem hoped her day would improve but with the morning she was having it didn’t seem likely. The school bell rang as Jeremy opened the car door so he raced to his classroom, leaving his school bag in the car. Aidan disappeared while Jem was hanging up the bag on Jeremy’s peg and was lost for several stress filled minutes until he was found three classrooms down, absorbed watching tadpoles in an aquarium.

A
rriving at kindy, Jem fastened Aidan into his pushchair but while she re-tied Daisy’s shoelace Aidan took the opportunity to unlatch himself and climbed out. After a pursuit where she managed to flush him into the relative safety of the kindy grounds she retrieved the pushchair and returned to discover he had found the paint table, coated his fingers with paint and was busy spreading it on nearby surfaces.

With a groan Jem
hurried over and suggested he use the large sheet of paper clipped to the easel.

Aidan complied with glee
while Jem hunted for something she could use to clean up the paint. A passing kindy teacher came up to admire his work.

“I’m sorry about
this,” Jem apologised. “If you give me a wet cloth I’ll wipe up the mess.”

“Don’t worry about it,” the teacher replied
as they observed Aidan move to a stack of magazines “He’s a busy boy.”

“I know,” agreed Jem as he started turning the pages
, leaving smudges of paint on them. “Do you think there is something wrong with him?”

“Heavens no!” the teacher exclaimed. “It’s good that he’s interested in trying things out. All the bright ones are. I’d be more concerned if he was content to sit there and do nothing.”

Even with that endorsement Jem felt frazzled as she swept into the entrance of North Shore Hospital with Aidan in tow. He’d been vocal about leaving the kindy then she had to endure the stop-start driving joy of commuter motorway traffic while he howled from the back seat.

As she herded
him toward the elevator because he refused to be carried Jem wondered how Jess coped with the children on a daily basis. Reaching the elevator as it opened she lifted Aidan up so he could press the button of the floor that contained intensive care. Aidan quickly pressed every button including the emergency stop which started a loud ringing sound. With a look of apology to the middle aged couple sharing the elevator she disengaged the alarm.

When they got out the middle aged woman looked annoyed as she stabbed the door close button. Jem couldn’t blame her as they were going to the top with scenic stops on every floor thanks to Aidan.

She dragged Aidan through the double doors to the intensive care ward and went to Jess’s curtained bay. A different nurse was writing on the chart as she entered. Mindful of the many buttons available to press she picked Aidan up and propped him on her hip. He immediately reached for his mother’s ventilator tubing and started shaking it.

In horror Jem prised his fingers off and moved back so it was out of his reach. Jess lay unresponsive on the bed. Jem pinched her lips together to keep the stinging in her eyes becoming tears and to prevent herself berating Aidan. The nurse hooked the clipboard back onto the rail at the foot of the bed, looked at Aidan then looked at Jem.

“She’s doing better this morning. Her signs are stable,” he told her.

Relieved to hear the good news Jem sank into the chair near the head of the bed and moved Aidan to her lap.

“I am so pleased to hear that. You can’t believe how much,” she told him.

“
The consultant saw her on his rounds half an hour ago. He’s pleased with her progress and has said we’ll be taking her out of her induced coma tomorrow afternoon all going well.” The nurse smiled at Aidan slipping off Jem’s lap. “I bet he keeps you busy.”

Jem grasped the pole of the drip stand that Aidan was attempting to push across the floor. The lines tautened where they
were taped to the back of Jess’s hand.

“You have no idea,” Jem replied.

After texting Jase, Mel and Eben a progress report then reading a few messages regarding work she needed to do, Jem sat in the car and wondered what she would do for the next hour until Daisy needed to be collected from kindy. Aidan’s behaviour had been diabolical but then it was asking too much for a two year old to stay put and to stay quiet. She had decided to leave after Aidan managed to unplug monitors, which had brought everyone running.

Her cell phone played Beethoven’s Ode to Joy from her
shoulder bag on the passenger seat. Jem idly wondered why someone would be ringing her from work as she answered.

“Jem!”
Cherie’s voice exclaimed in relief. “I am so glad I got hold of you.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Just work but that can wait a moment,” Cherie said, dismissing the subject. Her voice took on a tone of concern. “How is your sister doing?”

Aware of Aidan in the back seat Jem didn’t want to say anything which
he might pick up on and scare him.

“S
he had a rough night but she’s holding her own now.”

Jem bit her lip at the t
hought of helplessly watching Jess lying motionless when the heart monitor flat lined.

“It can’t be easy,” Cherie offered.

“It isn’t,” Jem confessed quietly.

She
swallowed then straightened in the front seat.

“What can I do
for you?” she asked assertively.

“It’s the venue in Glenfield for the Saturday reception. They have another group who want to use their centre at the same
time we do who are offering more money. They have decided that they need their deposit within the hour otherwise they’ll give it to the other group.”

“That’s not very professional,” Jem said.

“Tell me about it. I think they know that we’d be unlikely to give them repeat business so they’ve decided to make as much money out of the situation as possible. I was going to send a cheque by a courier but the traffic is so appalling I don’t think they’d get past the harbour bridge before the hour was up.”

“Would you like me to pay the deposit?” Jem asked.

“Would you, please? I’ll direct debit your bank account tonight.” Cherie told her the amount.

“No problem. As it happens I have a bit of time before I collect Daisy
so I’ll go and pay the deposit now. I know you are busy so I’ll only ring you back if I have any problems.”

After ending the call, Jem re-secured Aidan in his harness and taking side roads managed to make good time to the conference centre complex. With misgivings she unbuckled Aidan and carried him inside on her hip. If she left him in the car it might not be there when she returned.

At the reception desk a slender woman with heavy makeup looked disgruntled to see she would be receiving the deposit in time. Jem was displeased when she was informed the hiring price and hence deposit was almost double what Cherie had said.

“You quoted this price,” Jem said as she shoved the cheque she had written
in the car towards the woman. Aidan struggled and not wanting him to distract her she let him down, keeping the exit in her peripheral vision so he couldn’t leave the building.

The woman looked at the cheque with disinterest.

“Your company was given a quote, not a contract,” she told Jem smugly. “It turns out our conference rooms cost more to hire than that. Nothing has been signed so I can charge what I want.”

A heated discussion ensued, during which Jem was tempted to run a fingernail through the woman’s makeup just to see if it was as thick as it looked. In the end she paid the deposit on her credit card
ungraciously, making it patently clear that she was not impressed with the price gouging.

The woman behind the counter didn’t seem overly concerned and
after Jem’s card had been accepted she wandered into the back room, leaving Jem in the lobby by herself.

By herself.

After a brief moment of panic Jem assured herself that Aidan couldn’t have gotten outside and that there weren’t many places he could have got to. Down a short hallway the first doors she came to were the rest rooms. She checked inside the women’s restroom but no one was inside.

She paused outside the men’s restroom. She could hear water running loudly in the hand basin so decided to wait until whoever was in there came out. After a minute passed and she had heard more taps being turned on she decided to brace herself and enter anyway. Every man in there must be washing his hands by the sounds of it. Just as she began to press open the door little fingers appeared below the handle and Aidan squeezed out the narrow gap.

“Aunty Jem I went to the toilet all by myself,” Aidan proudly told her.

“You clever boy,” Jem told him as she scooped him up and sped to the front door. She had no intention of being found lingering outside the men’s room by whoever was inside.

Fortunately they didn’t see anyone as they exited the lobby nor in the car park as they backed out and into the traffic.

After collecting Daisy from kindy and giving the children lunch, Aidan took a break from causing chaos and destruction and had an afternoon nap. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Jem put the latest Barbie movie on for Daisy to watch, set up her computer on the dining table and started working.

A couple of hours
later she sat on the couch with Jeremy beside her and listened to him read his homework book.  Drongo made a nuisance of himself, rubbing his head against the book and digging his claws in when she attempted to push him out of the way.  She unhooked his claws from her jeans and dropped him unceremoniously on the floor.

Drongo swished his tail indignantly then saw an easier target. He sauntered over to Aidan and rubbed against his building blocks.

The block tower fell and Aidan dropped the blocks he was playing with. Jem tentatively waited for her nephew’s reaction.

“I feed him!” he exclaimed and raced to the fridge to withdraw an opened tin of cat meat.

At the sound of the fridge door opening Drongo quickly trotted to the kitchen. Jem watched in surprise at the amicable resolution.

As Jeremy finished his book she heard Eben’s voice in the kitchen.
He had come home shortly after they had returned from collecting Jeremy from school. He’d listened with interest to her explaining about Jess’s condition and had laughed about her rotten morning but had contributed little to the conversation. By the time he had disappeared with a cup of coffee into Jason’s office on the pretext of playing computer games she had no idea where he had been or what he had been doing.

After watching Jeremy set up a computer game she took his book
, filled in the reading record and put them in his homework folder on the breakfast bar. Eben was busy grating cheese while a pot of water boiled on the stove.

“Watcha doin’?”
Jem asked.

“I thought I’d take care of a quick dinner then you could visit Jess if you’d like.”

What a thoughtful thing to do. He must have an ulterior motive
.

Eben plonked a freshly poured glass of merlot on the counter.

“Thank you. What’s the occasion?”

Eben tapped the lip of his
beer can against her glass.

“Here’s to an early night for the kids and may they sleep all night.”

“Amen,” Jem murmured as she took a sip.

He grinned at her over the top of his can, dimple winking at her.

I am immune to dimples
, she reminded herself.

She watched him place opened bread rolls into the oven. There didn’t appear to be a vegetable in sight unless you counted the onion frying in the pan.

“So what’s for dinner?”

“American hot dogs and chips.”

“But where are the vegetables? You know, the healthy bits?”

“Not on the menu tonight,” Eben grinned. “This is why I’m the fun uncle.”

“I’m fun!”

“You could be.” Eben looked her over suggestively.

Jem felt her cheeks heat up.

Wine always does this to me,
she kidded herself.

“I am fun,” she insisted, purposely mistaking his comment but was spared further comment by a hacking sound coming from the other side of the breakfast bar. She cringed.

“I hope that sound isn’t what I think it is.”

Together they rounded the breakfast bar to have Drongo scurry between their legs and out the cat door in the kitchen. They looked where he had been moments before.

“Sure he’s a big cat but who knew he could fit so much inside him,” Eben commented as Jem retreated to the pantry and tore a fistful of paper towels off the roll. “Hey, want me to do that?”

“No, you’re cooking dinner. Besides it’s my fault he got so much to eat at once. Aidan fed him,” Jem explained as she gingerly scooped up some of the warm squishy mess.

Belatedly she looked at the cat bowl and saw the empty can lying on its side beside it. She looked again at Eben.